13 Fascinating Facts about the International Space Station

The International Space Station (ISS) is a spacecraft or a laboratory, constructed and operated by 16 countries, including the USA, Japan, and Russia. We have rounded up thirteen mind-blowing facts about the International Space Station.

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1. Sixteen countries were involved in the creation of the ISS namely the United States, Russia, Belgium, Japan, Canada, Brazil, France, Switzerland, Denmark, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
2. Wondering how big the space station is? The International Space Station is spacious and stretches about 357.6 feet (or 109 meters) in length and provides plenty of room to astronauts. Its weight is 460 tons.
3. Surprisingly, the ISS travels a whopping 5 miles-per-second which means the ISS orbits the entire earth once every 90 minutes.
4. The ISS is the most expensive object ever built. The cost of the station was estimated at about$120 billion.
5. Liquids and loose crumbs can be dangerous on the station. So drinks that come in plastic bags with straws are held in specific places with magnets.
6. This question commonly occurs, how do astronauts go to the toilet? There are two space toilets on the station. The urine of laboratory animals and astronauts is filtered and converted into drinking water.
7. The ISS is the third brightest object in the sky and is visible to our eyes. The space station looks like a fast-moving plane in the sky.
8. Surprisingly, astronauts who return from the station are younger than people who stay on the earth. It happens because of “relative velocity time dilation.
9. The ISS is composed of major and minor components. It is known as the largest human-made object ever sent into space. The station has a pressurized volume of 32,333 cubic feet that is similar to a Boeing 747. It is five times bigger than the USA station Skylab and four times bigger than the Russian space station the MIR.
10. The human body changes when you live on the ISS. The human body tends to lose bones and muscle mass in zero gravity conditions. All astronauts who travel on the ISS must exercise almost for 2 hours to maintain body health.
11. The ISS has the internet. Astronauts aboard the ISS have laptops so that they can contact their family, friends and even watch TV.
12. The ISS has an electrical system of 8 miles of wire that is longer than the entire perimeter of NYC’s Central Park.
13. In ISS, oxygen is produced through a process known as “electrolysis,” that combines using an electrical current generated from the station’s solar panels to divide water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen gas.